Breaking down the Terps' Paradise Jam hopes, bowl scenarios and new commit

TERPS TRIO

November 22, 2013

Baltimore Sun reporters Don Markus and Jeff Barker and producer-editor Jonas Shaffer weigh in on three of the biggest topics of the past week in Maryland sports.

Given the way the Terps have played this season, would you be more surprised if they won the Paradise Jam or if they didn’t?

Don Markus: Considering the way the draw was set up, with Maryland in one bracket and the three other major schools — Providence (Big East), Vanderbilt (SEC) and La Salle (Atlantic 10) — in the other, the Terps should have had no problems reaching the final.

But that was before Maryland lost to Oregon State on Sunday, after looking below average for the first 25 minutes against Abilene Christian in the home opener last week and having its issues in a season-opening, one-point defeat to Connecticut.

While I would be very surprised if Maryland lost Friday’s opener against Marist — a team that has dropped its first four games by an average of 27.2 points and was blown out by 45 against Providence — a second-round matchup against either Loyola Marymount or Northern Iowa could be problematic if Mark Turgeon’s team doesn’t start playing better defense.

Loyola Marymount doesn’t score the way it did two decades ago when Paul Westhead was the coach and the late Hank Gathers was its star, but the Lions have four players in double figures, decent size and a nice blend of youth and experience. They are 4-0 under 72-year-old coach Max Good, who back in the early '90s sent Johnny Rhodes from Maine Central Institute to College Park.

Northern Iowa will forever be remembered by college basketball fans as the team that knocked off No. 1 seed Kansas in the second round of the 2010 NCAA tournament on Ali Farokhmanesh’s 3-point shot with 30 seconds to go. The Panthers would have been the team Maryland faced had Michigan State’s Korie Lucious not handed the Terps their own buzzer beater. Northern Iowa is 1-2 this season after losing last Saturday at George Mason.

Nobody is confusing either Loyola Marymount or Northern Iowa for its famous predecessor, but the hype surrounding this year’s Terps going into the season two weeks ago for their trip to Brooklyn to play Connecticut at the Barclays Center has faded, too. There is legitimate concern surrounding Marylan after its eflating efeat to Oregon State. (I refuse to use a 'D' for that sentence until the Terps start playing some.)

The hard part is that if the Terps win the Paradise Jam, it will barely register on college basketball’s radar because of the lackluster competition. If Maryland stumbles again, there will be major concerns about whether Turgeon’s first two recruiting classes are living up to their high ranking. It’s almost a no-win situation for Turgeon and his Terps.

Not that Turgeon pays attention to this kind of stuff. Truth is, Maryland’s NCAA tournament chances will again come down to how it plays in the ACC. The Terps have more than a month to figure out whether freshman Roddy Peters will be their permanent point guard, whether sophomore center Shaquille Cleare is a major college contributor, and whether Dez Wells and Jake Layman can make Maryland competitive once the conference season starts.

I guess I will now answer the question first posed. I won’t be surprised if the Terps win the Paradise Jam, just as they beat the local competition in the Bahamas this summer. But having watched Maryland fall behind by 11 points to Abilene Christian, and having let a two-man Oregon State team score at will at Comcast Center Sunday, it would also not surprise me if they didn’t win the tournament.

How’s that for waffling?

What are Maryland’s best — and most realistic — bowl-game prospects?

Jeff Barker: In an ideal scenario, Maryland and its fans would all head to a distant, warm-weather setting. The players would get some time to lounge in a hotel pool. The boosters would sip mojitos and dream about the Big Ten Conference.

But that’s probably not happening this season. Given all of the injuries — don’t you miss seeing playmaking receivers Stefon Diggs and Deon Long? — becoming bowl-eligible was, by itself, an accomplishment.

Remember that this is a team that won two games in 2011 and four last season. Realistically, the hopes for an upper-echelon bowl game (Orange, Chick-fil-A, Russell Athletic) disappeared sometime during the three-game losing streak that ended last Saturday at Virginia Tech.

If you do the math, the most likely outcome for the Terps is a spot in the Military Bowl in Annapolis. That’s especially true if Maryland splits its last two games and finishes with a 3-5 conference record.

Remember that only conference play counts in determining bowl scenarios. The ACC has a bowl pecking order that begins with the Orange Bowl and ends with the Military Bowl.